


The Wayward Cure

by Brokenhorn



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Bloodborne - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7402327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brokenhorn/pseuds/Brokenhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josephine travels to the ominous city of Yharnam in search of her mother. She arrives just in time for the sunset and makes a deal in exchange for entry to the city. She has to perform a night of 'community service' in order to search the city freely for her lost mother. However, she soon discovers that nights in Yharnam are far from being normal or safe.</p>
<p>In her travel through and around Yharnam, Josephine faces beast men, fellow hunters, and cosmic horrors on the search for her mother!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wayward Cure

The sky of a sunset would have been a more calming sight on a different day. Rivers of darkening shades of orange and red would have brought warm, soothing thoughts in a different situation. The sun descending into the distant and ominous horizon would have brought soft dreams and hopeful thoughts of a new day, if the destination were any different.

Despite the beauty of a setting sun, the twisted trees and strange howls that filled the countryside of Yharnam did little to calm the nerves. It was even worse that the full carriage was traversing down a rough and rarely traversed road. Maybe it would have been better if the driver, and owner, of the stagecoach did not carry such a strong stench of wet dog on his person but it was doubtful that it would make this trip to the haunted city of Yharnam any different.

Josephine had fared much better trips without sharing a cramped cabin with strange travelers down this unpleasant road as the horses were pushed a little too hard to make haste and arrive, apparently, ‘on schedule’. The young woman, however, had her doubts that being smuggled into Yharnam had any schedule to follow.

Josephine only had one other companion with her on this uncomfortable and uneventful journey. A sickly and pallid man known as Gilbert. The poor man’s age was hard to decipher through his ragged and worn skin, his disease had aged and robbed him of any youthful appearance and his dark hair that was now just patchy tufts hiding under a ragged cap. His clothes were just as rough and torn as his appearance, thread barely able to keep itself together.

Compared to the poor man, Josephine was in a much better state. Her vest and coat were made of finer threads that Gilbert’s miserable linen. Josephine’s family was likely considerably much better off than Gilbert’s own. Her trousers were only dirtied by the dirt of the roads she had walked down to the carriage but her shin-high boots were caked in drying mud.

“It’s a mystery,” he explained as he fiddled with his bony digits. “But Yharnam’s church, the Healing Church, is said to have a miracle cure.”

Josephine gave a small smirk, “I’m actually hear because of a similar--“

The carriage jerked forward and fell back again, Josephine and Gilbert could only too so much to stay in their seats. They tumbled and were at the mercy of the rocky carriage and the particularly harsh stretch of road that they were traveling upon. The driver shouted incoherently at the horses while his passengers tumbled around. It felt like forever when the carriage stopped bucking wildly and settled back down to a tolerable turbulence. Josephine brushed herself off and Gilbert coughed as he settled back into his seat.

“-I am here for a similar reason, you could say,” Josephine continued. “I’m looking for someone. Family.”

Gilbert had to clear his lungs of another coughing fit after the carriage shook, “Oh… really? So, you have Yharnam blood in your family?”

“No,” Josephine shook her head. “But someone left to find a miracle cure. I just want to bring them back home.”

“Who,” the pallid, frail man asked.

Josephine did not wish to answer, toying with the crest on the necklace around her neck, her family’s crest and a gift from her mother, looking away from Gilbert and outside the carriage to the sun setting in the horizon. After a moment of her silence, he had another fit of coughing and didn’t press the question further.

It was still another hour before the carriage started to slow to a stop. The wheels slid a foot forward as the horses slowed to a stop, sinking into the old mud. The carriage had found itself in front of an old gate, a decrepit structure that looked as though it had gone unused for years as it stood tall over the twisted forests and the many abandoned roads surrounding the city itself. Pointed and menacing roofs could be seen over the towering walls, glimpses of the cathedral could be seen piercing the red and orange sky of the setting sun.

“Have a good night,” the carriage driver called out. With a growling cackle, he yanked on the reins and steered the carriage straight back into the forest from whence they had come, swallowed up immediately in the darkness with only the frantic neighs of anxious horses and the howling cackle of the ragged, cloaked driver.

There Josephine and Gilbert stood, staring up at the towering walls and distant pointed monoliths of ominous Yharnam. The misty air of the forest rolled in around their feet and brought an uncomfortable chill to the air. The duo stood outside the decrepit gate, glancing around for whoever it was they were supposed to meet.

Gilbert broke the silence, “Do you think we’re supposed to let ourselves in?”

“How,” Josephine asked. “There’s no way.”

They both turned towards the forest that they had traveled through to get here. The bare trees looked sinister and twisted, taking the appearance of agonizing shapes and inhuman shapes as the sun set further into the horizon. Going back was not an option.

A chuckle distracted them from any further thought. The chuckle became a low, rumbling laughter. Josephine and Gilbert turned around to see a frail, old man stand before them with metal cane in one hand and a dimly lit lantern in the other. He leaned forward on his cane, heavy hat drooping over his bandaged eyes and his yellow teeth in a wide grin. Though his eyes were both bandaged, which would logically make him a blind man, he stared at them from behind the portcullis that barred them from entering Yharnam.

“I am one of the Blood Ministers,” he introduced himself. “You want to get inside Yharnam?”

“Yes,” they both answered.

“Well then,” the Blood Minister grinned. His bandaged eyes seemed to stare through them both, sending shivers down their spine. “Come with me.”

He disappeared for a moment before chains started to rattle and the portcullis rose sluggishly slow. It stopped just a few feet off the ground and high enough for them both to duck under. Once inside the gate, the portcullis fell hard behind them and they followed the Blood Minister and his eerie, dim lantern.

It felt like forever when they finally reached the Minister’s office but the sky was stilled bathed in the many red and orange hues of sunset as far as Josephine could tell by looking through the dirty window. The Blood Minister drew the curtains closed, gesturing for them both to sit by the fireplace that cackled and spat sparks every once in a while as it gnawed voraciously at the firewood.

“Come, sit. We can discuss terms as to how you’ll enter Yharnam,” he said. “Ah, but before I forget, call me Virgil.”

Gilbert nodded quietly. “But wait, aren’t we already in Yharnam?”

“No,” Virgil said. “And yes, technically. But this is on the outskirts, along the wall. The locals are a peculiar bunch, they aren’t fond of outsiders or strangers. I live in this office not far from the gate where we came in, I help others like you become familiar with the Yharnam ways.”

Both Josephine and Gilbert glanced at each other, they both noticed something odd in Virgil’s tone of voice.

“Pleasure to meet you, Virgil,” Josephine said. “And how are we going to become familiar?”

“Well, we can get to that in a moment. What I want to know is… why are you here,” he asked. The old man rose on his weary legs, walking to a desk to recover something from the drawer.

Gilbert was the first to speak, “I’m here seeking a cure. As you can see I’m –“ He broke into a coughing fit that lasted more than a few moments. He wheezed to clear his throat. “I’m very sick. I was told Yharnam had a miracle cure.”

“Indeed it does. You’ll want to seek the Healing Church then,” Virgil said with a nod. His bandaged eyes turned towards Josephine, sending a slow shiver up her spine. “And you, young lady?”

“I’m searching for someone who left to find Yharnam’s miracle cure,” she answered. After a brief pause, seeing the Blood Minister’s expectant gaze for more to her answer, “I’m searching for my mother, Alice.”

“The Healing Church will also have your answers, then,” the old man answered. He carried two rolled papers, an inkwell and a pair of feather quills. He nonchalantly kicked a side table beside one of the chairs and pushed it in front of Josephine and Gilbert, unrolling the parchment and setting it down.

“You see,” Virgil said. “Yharnam prides itself on community service. To be welcomed into the city, you need to agree to help the community. For only a single night and then you are free to go through Yharnam as you wish.”

“What kind of community service,” Josephine asked as she glanced over the contract. The handwriting was an almost unreadable scrawl as if the author had no idea how to right.

“Anything that anyone asks you to do. But.. don’t worry, Yharnam prides itself on being a wholesome city. It won’t be anything humiliating. Likely just some physical labor and the like,” Virgil answered and tapped a thin finger at the bottom of the parchment. “Sign here, then we can begin.”

“Begin what, exactly,” Gilbert asked.

Virgil chuckled, grinning at them both with yellowed teeth. “Giving you a bit of Yharnam blood of your own, you could say. Nothing does that like a bit of hard work, eh?”


End file.
